The Commentariat -- June 24

I've posted a David Brooks page on Off Times Square. Comment on Brooks' column or something else.

** Paul Krugman & Robin Wells in the New York Review of Books: "The great financial crisis of 2008–2009, whose consequences still blight our economy, is sometimes portrayed as ... an extraordinary event that nobody could have predicted. But it was, in fact, just the most recent installment in a recurrent pattern of financial overreach, taxpayer bailout, and subsequent Wall Street ingratitude. And all indications are that the pattern is set to continue.... The busts keep getting bigger.... It was not always thus.... [President] Reagan, the great moralizer, made unchecked greed and runaway individualism not only acceptable, but lauded, in the American psyche." Read the entire review.

New York Times Editors: "Congressional Republicans, who played a major role in piling up the government’s unsustainable debt in the first place, have thrown a tantrum and walked out of the debt limit talks. This bit of grandstanding has brought the nation closer to the financial crisis that Republicans have been threatening for weeks. But, at least now, their real goals are in sharp focus." ...

... Erik Wasson & Russell Berman of The Hill, like other news outlets, report the surface story as high drama: "Negotiations over cutting Washington’s debt plunged into crisis Thursday, as the top Republican negotiator walked out of talks over his Democratic counterparts’ demand that taxes be raised. The walkout, by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), means talks to avert a debt default can probably now be salvaged only by two men: President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)." CW: Crisis! Only Obama & Boehner can save the nation! ...

... BUT the underlying story is more intriguing. And you won't be suprised to learn that so far it has a villain but no heroes: Ezra Klein details why Eric Cantor walked. Not surprisingly, it was all about Eric Cantor -- if he forces John Boehner to make a deal on tax increases, Cantor not only maintains his credibility with his Tea Party caucus, he weakens Boehner's hold on the Speakership. It is not, as Cantor claimed, the President he wants at the table -- it's Boehner. ...

     ... CW: Much Ado about Nothing. I'd do Klein one better. I think there's a good chance Cantor's little stunt will backfire on him. The Times editors have approrpriately characterized his antics as "a temper tantrum," reminding us of "Crybaby" Newt Gingrich during 1995 budget negotiations; that "crybaby" label contributed to Newt's downfall. Unless Boehner engineered Cantor's move to make himself the hero, he's more than irritated at Cantor; it's not usually a good idea to piss off the boss. AND of course when Boehner & Obama do cut a deal, Boehner could be seen as the hero, not the bad guy who caved on tax increases that -- guess what? -- will be ones popular with the public anyway. ...

     ... Update: In fact, Molly Hooper, also of The Hill, is reporting that Republicans now claim Cantor's walkout was long-planned. It's part of a coordinated effort to force President Obama to propose a solution, which they can bash. ...

I think it’s now in the hands of the speaker and the president and, sadly, probably me. -- Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader ...

     ... CW: Matthew Zeitlin, an intern at The New Republic, consults experts who provide legal justification for what I said months ago: if the Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, the Administration should ignore them & pay the bills anyway. "The government cannot legally default on its debts. Former Reagan official and maverick conservative budget wonk Bruce Bartlett has suggested as much by invoking Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that 'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.'” Read the whole post.

Ezra Klein: President Obama announced a major spending cut Wednesday night. He called it "withdrawing troops from Afghanistan." In a hypothetical scenario, the CBO projected that if the U.S. ended the current wars (not sure if that included the Libyan BFF bombs), "total discretionary outlays over the 2012–2021 period would be $1.1 trillion less than the amount in the baseline. Debt-service costs would bring the cumulative savings relative to the baseline to about $1.4 trillion over the coming decade.”

"Appoint & Nominate." Law Prof. Ian Ayres in a Washington Post op-ed, has a solution to Republican Senators' promise to refuse to confirm any Obama nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: "The president should make a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren and simultaneously nominate Sarah Raskin for the same position.... Raskin is ... abundantly qualified for the position. It would be hard for Republican senators to argue that Raskin, as a recently confirmed Federal Reserve governor, is a bad-faith nominee.... While traditional recess appointments usurp the Senate’s advise-and-consent role, the 'appoint and nominate' strategy would empower the Senate to end the recess appointment as soon as it wanted. Warren would, in effect, serve at the pleasure of the Senate."

So you think rising income disparity doesn't matter? Kevin Drum of Mother Jones posts this county-by-county map of the change in life expectancies for American women from 1987 to 2007. Those red counties  are areas where life expectancy has dropped. As Drum writes, "For life expectancy to decline in a developed nation is rare.... A key finding of the data is that 'inequality appears to be growing in the U.S.,' said Eileen Crimmins, a gerontologist at USC":

Tanya Somanader of Think Progress: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell admits Republican opposition to President Obama's Libyan stance would be "muted" if Obama were a Republican. With video. CW: I think the left is making a bigger deal of this than it is. McConnell is simply acknowledging his awareness of human nature: people are apt to keep their mouths shut when their friends screw up.

Carlotta Gall, et al., of the New York Times: "The cellphone of Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency.... The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside the country.... It also raised tantalizing questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency, given that it had mentored Harakat and allowed it to operate in Pakistan for at least 20 years."

Right Wing World *

Sen. Jim DeMint lays down the Crazy Gauntlet:

Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, Gov. Rick Perry Episode:

... Marc McDonald of Beggars Can Be Choosers has more. Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link.

* Where governors are kings and you're not.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The [New York] State Senate will vote on same-sex marriage, the Senate majority leader said Friday afternoon, setting the stage for a final decision on a measure that could make New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples can wed. The exact timing for a vote was unclear, though it was expected to occur Friday night." ...

     ... ** The new lede on this story: "Thirty-three state senators have publicly declared they will support legalizing same-sex marriage, all but assuring passage of the measure which will make New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples can wed." ...

     ... ** Update: "Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples can wed, and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born." ...

     ... ** Update: not in the lede to the revised story above, but in the headline: "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the measure at 11:55 p.m., and the law will go into effect in 30 days...." So there you are. Equal rights come to America, little by little.

New York Times: "Peter Falk, who marshaled actorly tics, prop room appurtenances and his own physical idiosyncrasies to personify Columbo, one of the most famous and beloved fictional detectives in television history, died on Thursday night at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 83.

Washington Post: "A day after debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Biden appeared to have broken down, the White House announced that President Obama would directly intervene in the negotiations, beginning one-on-one meetings with key lawmakers next week. Obama will start by meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday."

President Obama toured the Carnegie Mellon University National Robotics Engineering Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this morning. AP: "Imagining advances from lighter cars to smarter robots, President Barack Obama is announcing a $500 million project to spur high-technology manufacturing, a sector of U.S. industry that presidential advisers say has lost ground to such competitors as Germany and Japan." Update: here's a post-speech report from the Los Angeles Times. AND here's the text of the President's remarks, as delivered. See video above.

Wall Street Journal: "Federal regulators are poised to hit Google Inc. with subpoenas, launching a broad, formal investigation into whether the Internet giant has abused its dominance in Web-search advertising, people familiar with the matter said. The civil probe, which has the potential to reshape how companies compete on the Internet, is the most serious legal threat yet to the 12-year-old company, though it wouldn't necessarily lead to any federal allegations of wrongdoing against Google."

Time: "The House of Representatives on Friday is expected to hold two votes on U.S. action in Libya." CW: do read the article; the writer -- Jay Newton-Small -- lays out a nice little vignette that demonstrates anew how messy the legislative process is. ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "The House on Friday voted to reject a resolution that would have authorized the military operation in Libya -- delivering a rebuke to President Obama for conducting the operation without congressional approval. The vote was 123 to 295.... Seventy Democrats and 225 Republicans voted against the resolution.... The proposal, modeled on one proposed in the Senate by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), would have given permission for a “limited” operation for one year. It would not have allowed for U.S. ground troops in Libya.... Later on Friday, the House will vote on another resolution that would strip away funding for offensive operations in Libya, including strikes by unmanned U.S. drones." ...

     ... WashPost Update 2: "In something of a surprise, the House on Friday rejected a measure to cut funding for offensive operations by U.S. forces in Libya, pulling back from an effort to confront President Obama over the three month-old conflict. That resolution failed by a vote of 180 to 238. It would not have ended the U.S. mission in Libya, but it would have cut off funding for American forces that are not engaged in support missions within the NATO-led coalition...."

Washington Post: "The Securities and Exchange Commission, which had been seeking a budget increase to keep pace with its expanded responsibilities, struck out Thursday in a House committee that controls its purse strings. The Appropriations Committee voted to keep the agency’s budget flat in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The $1.19 billion the committee approved fell short of the Obama administration’s request by $222.5 million." CW: I'm so surprised.

New York Times: "In a sharp rebuke to the Obama administration, the Republican chairman of the House education committee on Thursday challenged plans by the education secretary to override provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Law, and he said he would use a House rewrite of it this year to rein in the secretary’s influence on America’s schools."

AP: "After 16 long years as a fugitive, notorious gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger was expected to be returned home to Boston on Friday, a law enforcement official said." With new mugshot.

I've brought the following three stories forward from yesterday's Ledes as I posted the links in the wee hours:

New York Times: "President Obama said he expected some heckling and he got it. More than 600 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people paid $1,250 each to attend a Democratic fund-raising dinner in Manhattan on Thursday and, to the vocal disappointment of some, they did not hear him endorse same-sex marriage generally or the bill that would legalize it in New York State."

Star-Ledger, et al.: "New Jersey lawmakers tonight voted to enact a sweeping plan to cut public worker benefits after a long day of high-pitched political drama in the streets of Trenton and behind closed doors. Union members chanted outside the Statehouse and in the Assembly balcony, and dissident Democrats tried to stall with amendments and technicalities. Although they successfully convinced top lawmakers to remove a controversial provision restricting public workers’ access to out-of-state medical care, they failed to halt a historic defeat for New Jersey’s powerful unions and a political victory for Republican Gov. Chris Christie."

New York Times: "Federal law enforcement officials have arrested two men who they say planned to attack a military processing center here using machine guns and grenades. The men — Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph A. Davis, 33, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., 32, of Los Angeles — were arrested late Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to murder federal officers and employees, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and several firearms-related charges."